From the looks of it, kinda. Section 4 of the rules says that all APIs avalible from java.com java.sun.com and java.net are allowed. And it may or may not allow other 'approved' APIs (if I'm reading it right).

But as it stands, that does rule out LWJGL and Gage as far as I can tell. ODE is on java.net (isn't it?) so that should be ok. Likewise for Jogl, Joal, JInput and Xith.

The spirit of the announcement seems to be "No thinly-disguised C++ games; no attempts to make java a "contributory" technology - these must be REAL java games that show off java-as-platform". (EDIT: which seems an excellent idea)

Given that, I'd have thought you could get things like LWJGL, Xith, etc approved with a nod. But...the GTG do have a history of ignoring the spirit of their own rules in favour of making life simpler for themselves, so... +1 for clarification, please!

The spirit of the announcement seems to be "No thinly-disguised C++ games; no attempts to make java a "contributory" technology - these must be REAL java games that show off java-as-platform". (EDIT: which seems an excellent idea)

Of course. Otherwise people could use their HWJGL (Heavy weight Jogl) which meant a game in C++ just being called by a Java wrapper. ;-) What's on java.net is known to SUN however and so no cheating.

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Given that, I'd have thought you could get things like LWJGL, Xith, etc approved with a nod. But...the GTG do have a history of ignoring the spirit of their own rules in favour of making life simpler for themselves, so... +1 for clarification, please!

When they quote:

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4. Eligibility of Submissions. General: All games submitted to the Contest (the ?Game?) must be 100% Java technologies as available from Java.Com, Java.Sun.Com and Java.Net and may include any additional Java APIs found on those web properties.

it looks like all the core APIs (JOGL, JOAL, Jinput, etc) plus the other java.net projects like Odejava, Xith3d, etc. are allowed?

Anyway, the contest ist a good idea from SUN and helpers! Very nice. A pity they didn't announce it one year ago, so I would have had enough spare time to enter the contest, hehe. ;-)

If Sun end up saying that JOGL is allowed, and LWJGL isn't then I am going to explode - that would be so infinately lame. For better or worse, I think they should restrict the competition to Java 1.4.2 , no extensions at all.

For better or worse, I think they should restrict the competition to Java 1.4.2 , no extensions at all.

No way. We all know that to do a really impressive game we need to bind to better graphics APIs (and sound)... Sun knows it too, or JOGL wouldn't exist.

It makes NO sense to cripple the competition into a lame applet contest in a 320 by 200 window.

LWJGL should likely be included, but if it isn't it shouldn't cause much grief - they had to draw a clear line, and it is SO much easier for them to say the "CORE" APIs and java.net stuff are that line.

OpenGL is OpenGL after all.. so choosing LWJGL or JOGL *for the purposes of this contest* shouldn't be a big deal. The contest isn't about compiling with Jet, nor is it about download size or not touching AWT... There are plenty of good reason to use LWJGL, but very few of them should prevent you from using JOGL and other core APIs for this contest and switching over to LWJGL for deployment with the "full" version of your game at a later date.

- Just to be clear though, yes I think LWJGL should be allowed.. but it isn't the end of the world if it isn't.

The contest isn't about compiling with Jet, nor is it about download size or not touching AWT... There are plenty of good reason to use LWJGL...

True, but as a LWJGL dev I feel that JOGL is getting a free ride, which I think is a bit "unfair" (for lack of better words) just because they choose to be hosted on java.net whereas LWJGL is hosted on Sourceforge. What would happen if we suddenly used java.net as our host, would LWJGL then be allowed? The definition of allowed "extensions" is vague and contradictive, which is why I said 1.4.2 - annoying as that may be.

And what about all the other technologies not hosted at java.net? Surely being hosted by A or B shouldn't determine whether or not a technology is suitable for being used to build java games in a contest.

Even if you ignore the fact that they allow libraries from "Java.Net", their testers' system requirements specify an OpenGL 1.3 compatible graphics card. There's no reason to mention that unless at least one OpenGL binding is allowed - I reckon JOGL at least must be in there. So thankfully it's not only restricted to Java2D on 1.4.2!

(Not that Java2D is bad at all - it's just not some people's API of choice)

Well, I think the "community" status of this competition is still under discussion! But that's fine - the main purpose of a competition such as this is to provide publicity for the host and the sponsors and to demonstrate what their technology can do - and judging by the amount of interest it's already garnered, I think they're all set to do very nicely out of this.

But maybe this isn't what people here were expecting, or not what they wanted to see? Fine. Let's keep discussing this compo and see where it takes us, and if there's room for a Ludum Dare-style Java competition (and if people want it) that's another discussion.

I sincerely hope the community API's such as LWJGL, JOGL, JOAL, Odejava and GAGE are allowed. Since most people wouldn't write a game without using at least one of those, it's pretty foolish to ban them IMHO.

I'm sure they are allowed - but I'll ping a few folks and see if they can comment to clarify.

Cool, I'd actually like to hear the oppinion of the board about this issue. This competions is sponsored by Sun, and as sun is "backing" the community - with projects such as JGO - it would be entirely justifiable to get the boards "official" stance on this.

I the more I read about this stuff, the more furious I get. I have yet to get any sane reason for doing what they have done.

]LWJGL should likely be included, but if it isn't it shouldn't cause much grief - they had to draw a clear line, and it is SO much easier for them to say the "CORE" APIThat's the point. Good summing.

Yes, easier as in ostrich!Defining CORE api's to be something distrubuted by sun (j2xE) and then tag along some random stuff hosted by a random site is complete and utter crap!

So, for the sake of arguing, suppose I register lwjgl as a project on java.net you would then say it's all of a sudden allowable?

What sun has done, is to ignore a HUGE amount of community projects just because the choose NOT to be hosted by sun, crap crap crap I tell you.

If they wanted to do it PROPER they'd define what technologies that are allowed, NOT which site you may get the technology from! As they start out by saying that a technology should be PURE java I really think they're bending this several times around themselves to allow JOGL (or any other opengl binding) since it's not a pure java implementation.

ps. Out of curiosity, are there some problems with using JOGL with 1.4+ opengl since they don't allow it?

Now, on to the business of what is allowed. This contest is about this community and game developers finging their way to Java technologies. Of course we are going to allow LWJGL and GAGE to be used. These are popular technologies in this community and well represented here. however, we reserve the right to exclude any APIs not hosted on one of our properties.

I think the reason is obvious

Thanks!

-ChrisM

P.S. it will take us a little longer to respond due to the massive amount of work at GDC

Cool, I'd actually like to hear the oppinion of the board about this issue.

The bulletin board, or the elected community board? While the elected board's observations would be interesting, I don't think they can really have a say in things - just because Sun sponsors the contest and Sun sponsors the board doesn't imply any other connection.

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What sun has done, is to ignore a HUGE amount of community projects just because the choose NOT to be hosted by sun, crap crap crap I tell you.

No, I really don't think there's any maliciousness intended here. I expect they'll either come back with a "Yes, of course LWJGL is allowed" or a "Whoops, didn't think about that, sorry". This is just a typical Sun balls-up. You must be used to them by now, eh?

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ps. Out of curiosity, are there some problems with using JOGL with 1.4+ opengl since they don't allow it?

No, not at all. It's just reasonable to suppose that 1.3 is widely-deployed on testers' machines, but 1.4 is too recent to be guaranteed. As the rules state, you can actually target whatever platform you want, but if the testers don't have access to whatever it is it's your responsiblity to provide hardware for them. Technology using a Flock of Birds might be nice, but unless you've got a few demo units you can ship to people, it's probably best avoided!

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Doesn't this sentence exclude jogl, ode and others? - or is a binding not considered as an engine?

No, because "Java.Net" APIs have already been explicitely mentioned as acceptable elsewhere in the document.

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If this is the case, I am off to register lwjgl as a project on java.net ...

Don't be too hasty, grasshopper! LWJGL made the decision to stay off Java.Net for good reasons, and the current situation really doesn't warrant changing that. As you realise, if the rubber-stamp of being hosted at Java.Net is all that's required, then it's a bogus requirement. No point allowing that policy to persist without good reason - let's get an official word on what's going on.

Note well: As of this moment we've had no Sun input or explanation as to what's going on. It's much more likely that this is an oversight or just a plain screw-up, and until we get an official response there's no point jumping to conclusions.

I think it would be a good idea anyway to register Lwjgl on Java.net, because java.net is a very central place, let's call it portal, to Java fans all over the world, in particular game interested ones. They're surely much more than registered with this forum. :-)

And yes, a binding is a binding and not an engine. ;-)

Aside this, Chris answered all questions... so Jogl, Lwjgl, etc are all allowed.

Excellent, just the answer I wanted to hear! - and I have already registered LWJGL as a linking partner - I have added the icon to our new site, however I need to confirm some stuff about the icon size it's HUGE!) before we can become a "java.net partner".

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